Midnight's Children | novel by Rushdie | Britannica.com novel by Rushdie Ulysses Midnight’s Children, allegorical novel by Salman Rushdie , published in 1981. It is a historical chronicle of modern India centring on the inextricably linked fates of two children who were born within the first hour of independence from Great Britain. Exactly at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, two boys are born in a Bombay (now Mumbai) hospital, where they are switched by a nurse. Saleem Sinai, who will be raised by a well-to-do Muslim couple, is actually the illegitimate son of a low-caste Hindu woman and a departing British colonist. Shiva, the son of the Muslim couple, is given to a poor Hindu street performer whose unfaithful wife has died. Saleem represents modern India. When he is 30, he writes his memoir, Midnight’s Children. Shiva is destined to be Saleem’s enemy as well as India’s most honoured war hero. This multilayered novel places Saleem at every significant event that occurred on the Indian subcontinent in the 30 years after independence.

Midnight’s Children was awarded the Booker McConnell Prize for fiction in 1981. In 1993 it was chosen as the best Booker Prize novel in 25 years. Learn More in these related articles: Sir Salman Rushdie June 19, 1947 Bombay [now Mumbai], India Anglo-Indian writer whose allegorical novels examine historical and philosophical issues by means of surreal characters, brooding humour, and an effusive and melodramatic prose style. His treatment of sensitive religious and political subjects made him a... in English literature: Fiction ...imperial discomfiture. Then, in the 1980s, postcolonial voices made themselves audible. Salman Rushdie’s crowded comic saga about the generation born as Indian independence dawned, Midnight’s Children (1981), boisterously mingles material from Eastern fable, Hindu myth, Islamic lore, Bombay cinema, cartoon strips, advertising billboards, and Latin American magic realism.... More about Midnight’s Children 2 References found in Britannica Articles Assorted References place in English literature (in English literature: Fiction ) External Links Corrections? Updates? Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback.

MEDIA FOR: You have successfully emailed this. Error when sending the email. Try again later. Edit Mode Submit Tips For Editing We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Encyclopædia Britannica articles are written in a neutral objective tone for a general audience. You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. (Internet URLs are the best.) Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. Submit Thank You for Your Contribution! Our editors will review what you've submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we'll add it to the article. Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed. Uh Oh There was a problem with your submission.

Please try again later. Close Date Published: January 27, 2016 URL: Access Date: January 19, 2017 Share Rushdie wins Booker of Bookers with 'Midnight's Children' | The Independent Rushdie wins Booker of Bookers with 'Midnight's Children' Thursday 10 July 2008 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Culture Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children has been fêted by the literary world for nearly three decades. Yesterday the public showed their appreciation, voting it the greatest Booker Prize winner of them all. The novel was selected from a long-list of 41 previous Booker winners, and had been the bookies' favourite on a shortlist of six nominated to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the prize. Announcing the winner, Victoria Glendinning, the chairman of the judging panel that picked the shortlist, urged the organisers to allow the public to choose the Booker winner every year. This, she said, would encourage people to read more.

It is the third Booker Midnight's Children has picked up since it first won the award in 1981, having also been judged the Booker of Bookers for the award's 25th anniversary. The shortlist this time included JM Coetzee's Disgrace, which came second, and Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda. Both Coetzee and Carey have won two Bookers. Pat Barker's The Ghost Road, Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist and J G Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur were also in the running. Rushdie's post-colonial story about the partition of India won 36 per cent of the vote. At least half the voting public was aged under 35 and more than a quarter of the 7,801 votes cast came from the US. Rushdie, 61, who was born in Mumbai but educated in England, is currently promoting his latest book in Chicago but sent a video message conveying his thanks to voters. His sons, Zafar and Milan, collected the trophy. He said: "[I think of] how astonished my younger self writing Midnight's Children in the late-1970s would have been about this.

It was written with such hope but not with the expectation that this book would still be interesting and relevant to people who were not even born when it was written." His youngest son, Milan, 11, said while he was still to read his father's magnum opus, he was born just eight minutes before midnight, similar to the protagonist of the novel, who was born on the stroke of 12. Mariella Frostrup, the television presenter and Booker judge, said the book had an "unputdownable" quality that appealed for its literary skill, and for being a "bloody great read". Rushdie's second novel remains his most highly regarded but he is best known for his controversial 1988 work The Satanic Verses, which was seen by some Muslims as blasphemous and earned him a fatwa from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. As a result he spent most of the 1990s in hiding. Ms Glendinning revealed she had initially regarded the "best of" prize as a "boring" exercise but had been surprised by how interesting the judging had become.

She failed to secure Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient a spot on the shortlist, but Midnight's Children and Disgrace were unanimous choices. The judges defended the prize from critics who said it was merely a marketing exercise to boost book sales. Ms Frostrup said it gave a new generation of readers the chance to read extra-ordinary works of literature. The prize is anticipated to once again drive up sales of Rushdie's novel. Janine Cook, fiction buyer for Waterstone's bookshop, said: "It still appeals to new readers – we've seen sales jump 500 per cent since the Booker of Booker shortlist was revealed." More about: MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie | PenguinRandomHouse.com Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Winner of the Booker of Bookers Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence.

His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time. Get the news you want from Penguin Random House Awards Man Booker Prize WINNER 1981 Praise “Extraordinary . . . one of the most important [novels] to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation.” –The New York Review of Books “The literary map of India is about to be redrawn. . . .

Midnight’s Children sounds like a continent finding its voice.” –The New York Times “In Salman Rushdie, India has produced a glittering novelist– one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling.” –The New Yorker “A marvelous epic . . . Rushdie’s prose snaps into playback and flash-forward . . . stopping on images, vistas, and characters of unforgettable presence. Their range is as rich as India herself.” –Newsweek “Burgeons with life, with exuberance and fantasy . . .

Rushdie is a writer of courage, impressive strength, and sheer stylistic brilliance.” –The Washington Post Book World “Pure story–an ebullient, wildly clowning, satirical, descriptively witty charge of energy.” –Chicago Sun-Times About Salman Rushdie Salman Rushdie is the author of eleven previous novels—Grimus, Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground… More about Salman Rushdie About Salman Rushdie Salman Rushdie is the author of eleven previous novels—Grimus, Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground… More about Salman Rushdie About Salman Rushdie Salman Rushdie is the author of eleven previous novels—Grimus, Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground… More about Salman Rush

die Author Essay One dusty summer evening in 1981 an extraordinary event took place in the sedate setting of India International Centre in New Delhi with its lawns, rose-beds and select circle of society members.

A young writer from Britain with a Muslim name, whose second novel had just been published, gave a reading in the small auditorium that drew a crowd so unexpectedly large that it spilled out under the trees and loudspeakers had to be set up to broadcast his voice, a voice that everyone present recognized instantly as being the voice of a new age: strong, original and demanding of attention.

Product Details Published by Random House Trade Paperbacks Apr 04, 2006 | 560 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780812976533 Hardcover Published by Everyman’s Library Oct 17, 1995 | 632 Pages | 5 x 8 | ISBN 9780679444626 Ebook Aug 26, 2010 | 560 Pages | ISBN 9780307744111 Share: Midnight's Children - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Midnight's Children ISBN 022401823X (first edition, hardback) Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by Salman Rushdie . It centres on the author's native India and was acclaimed as a major milestone in postcolonial literature . It won both the 1981 Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the same year.

It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary. [1] [2] Midnight's Children is also the only Indian novel on Time 's list of the 100 best English-language novels since its founding in 1923. [3] Contents [ edit ] Plot This section requires expansion . Midnight's Children is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the independence and partition of India , which took place at midnight on 15 August 1947 . The protagonist and narrator of the story is Saleem Sinai, a telepath with an extraordinary nose . The novel is divided into three books. [ edit ] Book One The first section details both the peculiar roots of the Sinai family and the earlier events leading up to India's Independence and Partition, connecting the two lines both literally and allegorically. Saleem is born at the exact moment that India becomes independent.

From that point on, Saleem Sinai feels the pressure of his chronology and invests his life and narrative in describing the zeitgeist of his child- and adulthood. [ edit ] Book Two During his childhood, Saleem discovers that he, as well as all children born in India between 12 AM and 1 AM on August 15, 1947, are imbued with special powers. A significant portion of the plot details the attempt by Saleem to use his powers to convene the eponymous children. The convention, or Midnight Children's Conference, is in many ways reflective of the issues India faced in its early statehood concerning the cultural, linguistic, religious, and political differences faced by such a vastly diverse nation. Saleem acts as a telepathic conduit, bringing hundreds of geographically disparate children into contact while also attempting to discover the meaning of their shared miraculousness. Saleem's Muslim family emigrates to Pakistan and back in the decades after the Partition, but during the Indian-Pakistan War Saleem simultaneously loses the majority of his family in an air raid. [ edit ] Book Three Saleem suffers an amnesia-inducing accident that lands him a curious position in the Pakistani army.

Again, the strange trail of his life affect and are affected by the history of the Subcontinent as he participates in the 1971 war between East Pakistan and West Pakistan . Saleem enters a quasi-mythological exile in the jungle of Sundarban, where he is re-endowed with his memory. He then returns to human settlements in Bangladesh, where he not only discovers old childhood friends from Bombay but also now slightly older Midnight Children. He accompanies one back to Delhi illegally, where, in failing to reconnect with the remnants of his biological family, he takes up residence (and a wife) in a ghetto of street performers and Communists. Meanwhile, Indian politics continues, and eventually reclaims him during the Indira Gandhi -proclaimed Emergency and her son Sanjay's "cleansing" of the Jama Masjid slum. For a time Saleem is held as a political prisoner; these passages contain scathing criticisms of Indira Gandhi's overreach during the Emergency as well as what Rushdie seems to see as a personal lust for power bordering on godhood.

The Emergency signals the end of the potency of the Midnight Children, and there is little left for Saleem to do pick of the few pieces of his life he may still find and write the chronicle that encompasses both his personal history and that of his still-young nation; a chronicle written for his son, who is equally chained to history by birth but also possesses the potential for the miraculous. [ edit ] Major themes The technique of magical realism finds liberal expression throughout the novel and is crucial to constructing the parallel to the country's history. It has thus been compared to One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez . The narrative framework of Midnight's Children consists of a tale -- comprising his life story -- which Saleem Sinai recounts orally to his wife-to-be Padma. This self-referential narrative (within a single paragraph Saleem refers to himself in the first person: 'And I, wishing upon myself the curse of Nadir Khan. ...'; ' "I tell you," Saleem cried, "it is true. ..."') recalls indigenous Indian culture, particularly the similarly orally recounted One Thousand and One Nights .

The events in Rushdie's text also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in the One Thousand and One Nights (consider the attempt to electrocute Saleem at the latrine (p.353), or his journey in the 'basket of invisibility' (p.383)). [4] The novel is also an expression of the author's own childhood, his affection for the city of Bombay (now Mumbai ) in those times, and the tumultuous variety of the Indian subcontinent. Recognised for its remarkably flexible and innovative use of the English language, with a liberal mix of native Indian languages, this novel represents a departure from conventional Indian English writing .

Compressing Indian cultural history, "Once upon a time," Saleem muses, "there were Radha and Krishna , and Rama and Sita , and Laila and Majnun ; also (because we are not unaffected by the West) Romeo and Juliet , and Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn " (359), Midnight's Children chronologically entwines characters from India's cultural history with characters from Western culture , and the devices that they signify -- Indian culture, religion and storytelling, Western drama and cinema -- are presented in Rushdie's text with postcolonial Indian history to examine the effect of these indigenous and non-indigenous cultures on the Indian mind and in the light of Indian independence. [4] [ edit ] Literary significance and criticism From its publication in 1981, Midnight’s Children has become a standard work on university syllabi and has enjoyed an international readership that catapulted its author almost overnight to the very forefront of world authors. It was awarded the 1981 Booker Prize , the English Speaking Union Literary Award, and it was awarded the James Tait Prize.

It also was awarded the Best Of The Booker prize twice, in 1993 and 2008 (this was an award given out by the Booker committee to celebrate the 25th and 40th anniversary of the award). [2] In 2003 the novel was adapted to the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company . [5] It has been compared in its scope and execution to works such as James Joyce ’s Ulysses , Günter Grass ’s The Tin Drum and Laurence Sterne ’s Tristram Shandy . Like them, Rushdie’s novel presents an encyclopaedic exploration of an entire society through the story of a single person. It is able to do this, in part, by merging with the novel form a number of non-Western texts such as the Sanskrit epics, The Ramayana , The Mahabharata and, most consciously One Thousand and One Nights . The novel ran into some controversy for its open criticism of Indira Gandhi , India's then prime minister , and the Emergency that she imposed on the country.

Rushdie wrote a television adaptation of his own novel in five episodes, which was about to begin filming in Sri Lanka when the government abruptly withdrew its permission and the project had to be abandoned. Rushdie published his adaptation as The Screenplay of Midnight's Children (London: Vintage, 1999). [ edit ] Characters Saleem Sinai - The protagonist and narrator, Saleem Sinai is a telepath with an enormous and constantly dripping nose, who is born at the exact moment that India becomes independent. He is constantly referred to as "the nose" in the book, from the prophecy made about him "knees and nose." Jamila Singer - Saleem's sister, named Jamila Sinai at birth, nicknamed the Brass Monkey during her childhood. She goes on to become the most famous singer in West Pakistan. Aadam Aziz - Aadam Aziz is a doctor and the father of Amina Sinai, or Mumtaz. He has many children with Naseem Ghani, and struggles with questions of the existence of God throughout his life. Tai - A boatman, Tai is a friend of Aadam Aziz.

At times he demonstrates his ability to predict the future and, while most people consider him insane, he in fact makes several insightful remarks, the most important of which is his advice to Aadam Aziz to "follow his nose." Naseem Ghani - Naseem Ghani is the daughter of a landlord and the mother of Amina Sinai, or Mumtaz Aziz. She is a dramatic and strong-willed character who possesses a lot of power in her relationship with her husband Aadam Aziz. Later referred to by Saleem as "Reverend Mother". Ghani the landowner - Naseem's father. Padma Mangroli - Saleem's lover and, eventually, his fiancée, Padma plays the role of the listener in the storytelling structure of the novel. Oskar and Ilse Lubin - German anarchist friends of Doctor Aziz. Alia - The sister of Amina Sinai, or Mumtaz, Alia suffers from a lifelong love for Ahmed Sinai, whom her sister Mumtaz marries. Her resentment toward her sister manifests itself in the meals she cooks, and therefore affects those who eat what she prepares.

Mumtaz - Mumtaz, the sister of Alia, has her name changed to Amina when she gets married. Rushdie repeatedly describes Amina Sinai as "assiduous" in her wifely efforts. By sheer willpower, she forces herself to love her husband Ahmed Sinai. However, during her marriage to him she also has an affair with Nadir Khan, to whom she was married for two years in her youth, although they never consummated the marriage. Hanif - Saleem's uncle Hanif is a screenwriter who enjoys some fame in his youth, but who grows disillusioned later in life with Bollywood and the superficiality of the film industry, and commits suicide. Husband to Pia, a former actress and eventual joint petrol-pump proprietor with Naseem (her mother-in-law). Mustapha - Saleem's uncle, the brother of Mumtaz, marries Sonia. Emerald - Saleem's aunt, the sister of Mumtaz, marries General Zulfikar. Mian Abdullah - (Also known as the Hummingbird) A pro-Indian Muslim political figure, who dies at the hands of assassins.

Nadir Khan - Mumtaz's first husband, Nadir Khan is the Hummingbird's personal secretary. After the Hummingbird's assassination, Nadir hides in the Aziz household for a few years, where he has a relationship with Mumtaz. Rashid the rickshaw boy - A boy who informs Doctor Aziz that Nadir Khan needs a place to hide. General Zulfikar - The husband of Emerald, who is involved with Pakistani political events. Lifafa Das - A peep show street man who leads Amina to seer. Shri Ramram Seth - A seer Amina visits while pregnant. William Methwold - An Englishman from whom the Sinais buy their house in Bombay. One day before selling his estate, Methwold invites Wee Willie Winkie and his wife, Vanita to perform for him. At one point he sends Winkie out to fill a prescription of his, and seduces Vanita, resulting in Vanita becoming pregnant. It is Methwold, then who is Saleem's biological father. Ahmed Sinai - Saleem's father and Amina's husband. Wee Willie Winkie - Shiva's father and Vanita's husband.

Vanita - Saleem's biological mother, who dies during labor. Mary Pereira - A midwife and servant, who switches Shiva and Saleem at birth. Doctor Narlikar - A Gynecologist and businessman. Doctor Bose - The doctor who delivers Saleem Evie Lilith Burns - Saleem's American childhood sweetheart. Sonny Ibrahim - Saleem's neighbor and friend. Joseph D'Costa - Mary Pereira's lover, who is politically radical. Shiva - A boy who is born at the same moment as Saleem. They are switched at birth, and Shiva possesses an amazing ability to fight. Shiva is the knees in the prophecy of "knees and nose" and is the possessor of abnormally large knees. Parvati-the-witch - One of midnight's children, and a friend (and wife)of Saleem. Homi Catrack - A man who has an affair with Lila Sabarmati and is subsequently murdered by Commander Sabarmati. Lila Sabarmati - Commander Sabarmati's wife, who is shot, but not killed, by him for having an affair with Homi Catrack.

Commander Sabarmati - The husband of Lila Sabarmati who shoots his unfaithful wife and murders her lover. Alice Pereira - Mary's sister, who works for Ahmed Sinai. Uncle Puffs - Jamila Singer's agent. Tai Bibi - A 512-year-old whore who Saleem visits. Farooq, Shaheed, and Ayooba - Saleem's fellow soldiers in the Pakistani army. Sonia - Mustapha's wife Durga - A wet nurse for Aadam Sinai and a succubus to Picture Singh. Aadam Sinai - Saleem's son. (Shiva's biological son) Picture Singh - A snake charmer and a friend to Saleem. Musa - The disgraced servant of Ahmed Sinai whom later Mary mistakes for ghost of Joseph D'Costa. Midnight's children (Book, 1981) [WorldCat.org] Find more libraries Librarian? Claim your library to Midnight's children Print book : Fiction : English View all editions and formats Database: WorldCat Summary: The story of Saleem Sinal, born precisely at midnight, August 15, 1947, the moment India became independent.

Saleem's life parallels the history of his nation. Rating: You are connected to the University of Washington Libraries network Hide local services for this item OCLC FirstSearch Add library to Favorites Please choose whether or not you want other users to be able to see on your profile that this library is a favorite of yours. Allow this favorite library to be seen by others Keep this favorite library private Find a copy in the library Finding libraries that hold this item... Details Winner of Booker of Bookers 1993. Winner of Booker Prize for Fiction 1981. Winner of James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Fiction) 1981. Shortlisted for Best of the Booker 2008. Description: Salman Rushdie. Abstract: A novel set in 20th century India, whose central character is a man born at the midnight of India's independence. Read more... Reviews Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers. Be the first. Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers. Be the first. Tags Add tags for "Midnight's children". Be the first.

Similar Items SparkNotes: Midnight’s Children: Context Midnight’s Children Table of Contents Plot Overview Salman Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947, to an affluent family in Bombay, India. Rushdie’s birth coincided with a particularly important moment in Indian history: after nearly one hundred years of colonial rule, the British occupation of the South Asian subcontinent was coming to an end. Almost exactly three months after Rushdie’s birth, Pakistan and India achieved their long-awaited independence when, at the stroke of midnight on August 14 and 15, respectively, power was transferred from Great Britain to the sovereign governments of each country. The period that immediately followed independence proved tumultuous. Political and social tensions between Hindus and Muslims caused not only the division of India into two separate countries—a calamitous event referred to as Partition—but also wide-scale riots that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The violence that accompanied independence was a prelude to the multiple wars, coups, and governmental abuses that plagued the area in the years that followed. The political upheaval and constant threat of violence that marked the first three decades of independence forms the backdrop for Midnight’s Children, Rushdie’s most celebrated novel.

Like Rushdie himself, Saleem, the narrator of Midnight’s Children, is born on the eve of independence, and the events of his life closely parallel events in the development of both India and Pakistan. Most of Rushdie’s novels concern themselves, to some extent, with the character and history of these two major South Asian nations and describe the various, often violent struggles between different religions, classes, languages, and geographical regions. In the thirty years following independence, India and Pakistan fought three separate wars: two over Kashmir, and one over the creation of an independent Bangladesh. The wars produced millions of refugees, claimed thousands of lives, and led to a nearly permanent state of tension between the two countries. Raised in a well-to-do Muslim household, Rushdie was given an excellent education. After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1968, he moved briefly to Pakistan, where his family had immigrated after Partition, before returning to England to work as an actor and copywriter. Soon after, Rushdie published his first novel, Grimus (1975). A blend of science and literary fiction, Grimus, though generally ignored by critics, nonetheless marked the debut of a new literary talent that incorporated myth, magic, and fantasy into his narratives.

Six years later, Rushdie published Midnight’s Children, which won the Booker Prize in 1981, and was later deemed the best Booker-winning novel from the first twenty-five years of the competition, earning the title “Booker of Bookers.” Heralded by critics as an enormous literary achievement, the novel instantly earned Rushdie comparison with some of the world’s greatest contemporary writers. However, Rushdie’s great international fame is mainly owed to his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses and the controversy that followed its publication. Muslim religious clerics and politicians deemed The Satanic Verses sacrilegious and offensive for its harsh, critical portrayal of Islam and for its less-than-reverent treatment of the Prophet Mohammed. The novel was banned in Rushdie’s native India and prompted the theocratic Iranian government to issue a fatwa—a religious ruling—calling for his death in 1989. Rushdie spent the next nine years living in secrecy, under the protection of bodyguards and the British government.

Fearful for his life, Rushdie nonetheless continued to write and publish books, most notably Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) and the Moor’s Last Sigh (1995), as well as two works of nonfiction, The Jaguar Smile (1987) and Imaginary Homelands (1991). When the Iranian government lifted the fatwa in 1998, Rushdie was able to enjoy a return to a moderately normal life and eventually settled in New York City. Rushdie’s work, and Midnight’s Children in particular, is often associated with several categories of literary fiction, including magical realism, postcolonial fiction, and postmodern literature. His work is often compared to, and admittedly influenced by, novels like Gunter Grass’s Tin Drum and Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Equally significant as the incorporation of mythical and fantastical elements into his fiction is Rushdie’s uniquely Indian perspective on the English language. Rushdie’s novels hum with an eclectic mix of prose styles, which echo the rhythm and slang of English as it is colloquially spoken in India.

Familiar English words get combined in new and unusual ways, and long, unbroken sentences run on freely, sometimes spanning a page or more. The inspiration Rushdie draws from both ancient and contemporary Indian culture is also notable in his fiction. Elements taken from traditional Indian mythology and religion thread themselves through the novel, as do the artistic conventions of modern Bollywood, the vigorous, populist cinema industry based in Bombay. In its sheer exuberance and sprawling range of cultural sources, as well as its attempt to include as much of India’s vast cultural identity and contemporary history as possible, Midnight’s Children is as complete a reflection of the life and character of the subcontinent as any single novel could possibly provide. Bookride: Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children, 1981. Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children, 1981. Salman Rushdie. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN. Jonathan Cape, London, 1981.

Current Selling Prices $1500-$3500 /£800-£1800 MODERN FIRST EDITION / BOOKER PRIZE Winner of the Booker Prize in 1981 and awarded "The Booker of Bookers" in 1993 for the best Booker Prize winning novel in the first twenty five years of the award. The work is regarded by many critics and readers as the great classic of the late twentieth century. Another critic (Jonathan Bate) quoted in a previous entry on Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude wrote: 'Let us hope that [it] will not generate one hundred years of overwritten, overlong, overrated novels. Enough that it has already inspired such excrescences as Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.' With a discernible backlash against magic realism, with which Rushdie is forever associated, the book is no longer rated as highly as it was - except by earnest book dealers trying to shift it.

As a great story teller he will always be collected and many people who were underwhelmed by Midnight's Children were delighted by 'Haroun'--but as a prose stylist he is not seen to be in the class of Nabokov or Borges, and falls a long way short of his ingenious contemporary Martin Amis. It is not the most difficult Booker to find, that honour belongs to Middleton's 'Holiday'. However it is possibly the most valuable - a fine copy in jacket (the spine of which tends to fade) can command over £1000 especially if signed. There are some dealers charging considerably more than this for copies signed with pre Fatwa signatures--one asking a 'dream on' £5K says of his: '...the signature is nothing like the (understandable) scrawl you get today, but strikingly full, long and beautiful and really different from anything we have seen over the years.' It is true that signed Rushdie books in this century are very common and the signature is hasty, if not perfunctory.

The king of the 'get lost' signature is old rocker Lou Reed--on some of his books it looks pretty much like two straight lines and would shame a GP -it goes something like this '___ ____'. They are still quite saleable, mainly because he is unapproachable and unpleasant and perhaps because he is one of the supreme songwriters. The cheapest signed Lou out there is 'Pass Thru Fire : The Collected Lyrics' at $150. You can buy a signed Rushdie--of his rock novel 'Ground Beneath her Feet' for as little as $15. Of this book the 'India Star' critic C. J. S. Wallia wrote '...with its 575 tiresome pages.. it spreads ample new ground beneath his feet to trod while he assails the reader with massive verbiage straining to be comic.

In this muddled melodramatic novel, Rushdie comes off as a wannabe Mel Brooks of contemporary literature -- an aspiration he can't achieve for he lacks the wit.' Wallia proposes an exclusive new club for those who have got past 17 of 'Satanic Verses.' He says of Western critics-'...reviewers have, typically, hesitated to criticize Rushdie, ascribing instead their difficulties in understanding his previous works to their unfamiliarity with his Indian settings and contexts...' The US edition of 'Midnight's Children' actually precedes the London edition- due to a printers strike in the UK the Cape editions were bound from US sheets--however the UK ed is worth more than the American and is harder to find, being issued in a smaller edition. A case of 'Follow the Flag.' VALUE? The highest record for any Rushdie book is the £1800 paid in 2001 for a limited edition 'Satanic Verses- --one of 12 copies , signed and bound in full morocco leather. This is a book that will rise ineluctably, mostly because of the furore around the book.

An interesting inscribed copy of 'Midnight's Children' surfaced in 2003 and made £1000. The cataloguer notes that Rushdie had worked as a freelance copywriter for the advertising agency Charles Barker; one of the accounts that he handled was that of the financial service group M&G, in the course of which he got to know a Roger Jennings who was working for the company. Rushdie would often discuss Midnight's Children (which he was then writing) with Jennings, and promised him an inscribed copy, once it was published. The highest auction record for 'Midnight's Children' is £1100 inc premium paid in 2004 for a (presumably fine/fine) copy signed by the author on the title page. This year at Bonham's L.A. a signed copy in near fine jacket made $1440. In the short term the prices of his books have been falling off slightly or , at best, they seem to be bumping along with a lot of auction lots being 'bought in' - indicating over-enthusiastic sellers and apathetic, indifferent buyers. However it is likely that this and his more difficult books will rise in value.

Possibly something to do with India becoming richer, his large and enthusiastic 'chattering class' fanbase and the great fame and notoriety (see left) of Salman himself and finally the difficult of finding limpid copies. SEE COMMENTS BELOW - palpable signs of a bull market in the book. It is possible that he will get a Nobel prize to add to his knighthood. Nobel Prizes, like movies, are always supposed to turbo-charge prices but it seldom happens. When the great playwright, poet and politico Harold Pinter won the Nobel we sold a few signed editions that had been kicking around for years - but so far it has done little for Doris Lessing values. Outlook? Good, if you can wait. Posted by

Question: Who was the recipient of the 1981 Booker Prize for their novel 'Midnight's Children'?
Answer: SALMAN RUSHDIE